15.
Jesper Juul
»The magic circle is the boundary that
players negotiate. (…)
Game scholarship should be about
analyzing the conventions of this
boundary, and how and when this
boundary is created and negotiated.«
the magic circle and the puzzle piece (2008: 62)
15

26.
ro1: definitions
• Frame: The total mesh of actors (including their dispositions and attitudes),
objects, settings, actions, communications and events (and their features) that
reproduces-and-changes their perceivably similar co-occurrence as types of
situations across space and time
• Framing: The situational process of a set of actors, objects, settings, actions,
communications, events self-organising as a recognisable type of situation
• Frame perception: An actor’s perception of the current framing of a situation
• Frame understanding: An actor’s reflexive apprehension of a frame perception
• Frame experience: An actor’s phenomenal experience of the former two
• Frame configurations: The features of situationally arranged objects and
settings that align with a frame
• Frame dispositions: Embodied properties enabling an actor to perceive, identify,
enact a specific frame
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29.
Ro2: the processuality of gaming
• Enactment as »gaming« involves two constitutive
orders: gaming a game and this game
• No »magic circle« necessary: just actors’ perception,
understanding, enactment as »gaming« in open,
sequential, indexical coordination Aarsand 2007
• Metacommunication does occur, but is neither
frequent, nor necessary, nor sufficient to constitute
»gaming« (metacommunication is also indexical)
29

34.
research objectives
1. Construct a systematic FA of video gaming
2. Explicate the role of process
3. Explicate the role of materiality
4. Describe the frame conventions of video gaming
5. Establish the specifics of instrumental gaming
34

47.
»I would call it a game –
but I did not play it.«
Object
Framing
ro5: Instrumental gaming

48.
ro5: instrumental gaming
• Again, multiple forms of instrumental gaming:
reviewing, analysing, training, tournament
• Participants reported instrumental gaming to be
»not playing«, used emic terms to distinguish them
• But behaviour and configurations highly similar to
leisurely gaming
• And people reported »slipping« from instrumental
into leisurely
‣ Instrumental play is a keying: a re-framing
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49.
Keyings are »conventions by which a
given activity, ... meaningful in terms of
some primary framework, is transformed
into something patterned on this activity
but seen by the participants to be
something quite else.«
Erving Goffman
frame analysis (1986: 43-44)
49

53.
summary
• FA distinguishing »games« as objects/settings and
»gaming« as situational framing accounts for
• Convergence: Situational actor-object relation affords gaming, but actors
constitute it with objects
• Instrumental play: A keying of gaming as instrumental task
• The is no one video gaming frame, but leisurely modes of
gaming around types of enjoyment and instrumental
keyings around types of instrumental goals
• Leisurely gaming is enjoyable partially because it provides
the autonomy to reconfigure or leave the situation
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55.
Ramifications & Future research
• »Gaming« as frames and framing suggests
theoretical approach to »media« in age of
convergence
• Situational autonomy support important for game
enjoyment
‣ Poses challenge for serious games, gamification
in low-autonomy situations
• Situational factors important for game enjoyment
‣ Calls for ecological approach to/studies of game
enjoyment »in the wild«
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